Article Beach Kids

Marjorie Klein is the author of a novel Test Pattern published by Wm Morrrow in 2000 (hardcover) and Perennial/HarperCollins in 2001 (trade paperback). For 25 years, she worked as a freelance writer for various publications including Tropic, the Miami Herald's Sunday magazine, as well as the Washington Post, St. Petersburg Times, Hispanic Magazine and others. She presently teaches creative writing at the University of Miami, and has taught at Miami-Dade College and Florida International University, where she received her MFA in creative writing. She is working on another novel. She teaches creative writing at the University of Miami and is the recipient of a 2007 Florida Individual Artist fellowship....and of course, attended Beach High but graduated a few years later than us and most likely considers herself a social activist.

BEACH KIDS

BY

MARJORIE KLEIN

They were the Beach kids: the kids from Miami Beach High. I had never known anyone like them.

They were sharp. They were funny. They had an attitude before it was spelled with a capital "A".

And when they spoke of their hometown, it was with an intensity and love that transcended the

standard homesickness of college freshmen.

When I first met them in 1958, I had never been to Miami Beach. With movies and television as

my only references, I visualized it as a Technicolor city an upscale Oz with palm trees starring

Arthur Godfrey as the Wizard. It was not a real place where real people lived.

But real kids did live there. I met them during my freshman year at the University of Florida in

Gainesville. With the exception of the Beach kids, most of my classmates were typical of that

materialistic facade was a loving camaraderie, a soft underbelly to the cynicism so many affected.

It was that dichotomy that drew me to the Beach kids.

And so I came home with Susie for spring break. We did all the things that Beach kids did: flirted

at 48th Street Beach, hung out at Fun Fair, faked I.D.'s to get into Copa City, and shopped on

the then-chic Lincoln Road. It was there, in a chance encounter in the parking lot, that Susie

introduced me to a guy she knew from high school.

Three years later, I married him. And I became, by osmosis, a Beach kid myself.

I hear a click like the turn of a key in a Studebaker. The Miami Beach High '58 Reunion Machine is

cracking into gear once more.

There was a 10th, a 20th, a 25th reunion. Now there is talk of a 30th , to take place a year from

now. Someone has discovered a cache of old Beachcombers-the school paper-and will copy

and send them to class members monthly until the reunion takes place. The reunion committee

is firing up; the meetings are almost as mush fun as the reunion itself.

But the reunions are more than mere celebrations of joy; they have become wakes for what

used to be.

The nostalgia is for a school that exist only in their memories, in a city that most tof them have

abandoned -even as a place to hold their reunion.

The 25th was held on Key Biscayne a weekend at the Sonesta. There was some discussion

about holding it on Miami Beach- the site of the 10th and 20th--but the committee vetoed the

proposal to hold it in the deco hotel district. Others were eliminated as "too Miami Beach," as if

final were a curse.

.....Not everyone feels this way. There are those who return for the nightlife and the beaches;

others have returned for good, buying homes and getting involved in development. A few never

left at all. But there is unanimous agreement on one fact: Miami Beach has changed. It will

never be the same...

...Mark Medoff, author of"Children of a Lesser God." is now at work on a novel about growing up on the Beach. "I remember eighth grade parties in oceanfront mansions," he recalls. "Then they began tearing them down to build hotels. You could see those properties disappearing. We were moved off the Beach to the other side of Indian Creek. We felt this resentment, that the tourists were interlopers. "In a way, this feeling was another bond that solidified the cohesiveness that marked the kids of Beach High until it moved in 1960...

"It was a hell of a high school, "agrees Mark Medoff. "You had wonderful teachers, and there was a prevalence of respect for academics." It proved to be a fertile breeding ground for the next generation of Miami's leaders, producing a disproportionate number of professionals: doctors, lawyers, judges, politicians, developers, publishers, and several people prominent in the arts.

******

...Mid-October, 1987, A high noon sun illuminates Espanola Way, crisply defining its newly painted pinkness against an enamel-blue sky. "This was it, "says Bobby Bishop, "928." We peer through the windows of what seems to be an office under construction. Thirty years ago it was Dolly's.

Mention Dolly's to a Beach kid and watch his eyes focus inward. This is what he's seeing: a tiny luncheonette, open to the street, right around the corner from the old Beach High. Jukebox to the left, counter to the right. Inside, the guys punching nickels for Buddy Holly or Elvis, consuming great quantities of burgers and 15-cent Jumbo Coolers. Making lewd comments at crinolined girls who pointedly cross the street on their way to Ding Ho or Dairy Queen, elaborate ignoring the guys...

....Bobby Bishop's parents owned Dolly's...

...The aroma of roast chicken floats by as we walk. Beach Poultry is one of the few reminders of the Espanola of the fifties...

...We walk over to the old Beach High...It was used as the setting for the movie "Porkey's." ...The fountain and the fish pond are no longer there. Once, it was lushly landscaped; its breeze-swept rooms opened onto a flower-filled patio...

Bobby and I walk to Penn Way Drugs, another lunch spot for the girls...Bobby's face breaks into a smile as I point out the round black circles marching up the aisle to the right, where the stools would have been if there were still a counter. For just a moment, we can almost see a line of saddle shoes hugging the pedestals, almost smell the tuna sandwiches and french fries, almost hear the giggles of girls who may be grandmothers by now...

...Most Beach kids...come back to visit out of curiosity or hope. They slowly circle familiar streets, following the mobius strip of nostalgia. If they come back to live, they usually return to the suburban safety of the islands or the residential areas north of Lincoln Road. Often, the prospect of living on the water is the magnet...

While some have acquired an appreciation of art deco, many are mystified by its appeal. They find it both amazing and amusing that the old buildings of their youth are now considered historic...

...Judy Kossoff Schoenbrun: "We recently went to Lincoln Road...I wanted to look in the Lillie Rubin window because I had so many memories; it was so elegant. You would sit in front of the salon and gowns would be bought to you. The dressing rooms were plush and they would bring you cokes and you would sit there like a princess...

...Jim Steig: "We used to go to Al's pool hall on Third Street any time of the day or night. We took buses everywhere. We never thought about being in any danger. I still thank God that I was lucky enough to grow up in a place like this."

...Time has skimmed the memories of the Beach kids saving only the best lime coolers at Dolly's, a cabana at the Fontainebleau, Saturdays at 14th Street beach. The bad stuff sinks like sediment in the murky waters of nostalgia.

Old Miami Beach, to them, may be more a feeling than a place, a spiritual landmark for the events and emotions of growing up. Their longing for the city of their youth may be just a longing for lost youth itself.

"Miami Beach was a utopia, but not representative of the world kind of community," says Sandy Friedland. "Now it reflects society as it truly is. I was privileged for having been bought up there, but as exquisite as the past was, you have to grow up."